


The Tower

by witchqueencirce



Series: The Wayhaven Chronicles: Maxine Quinn [3]
Category: The Wayhaven Chronicles (Interactive Fiction)
Genre: A whole lot of kissing, Early Relationship, F/M, with a pinch of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:40:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27870070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchqueencirce/pseuds/witchqueencirce
Summary: Commanding Agent du Mortain and Detective Quinn are tasked with surveillance duty at the top of the old fire tower in Wayhaven.“Come on, Commanding Agent,” she says his title teasingly, hands slowly coming to grip the edges of his open coat.  “We can have a little fun while we wait for sundown.”He sighs, “we need to be focused on why we are here, Maxine.”She arches a brow. “Oh so you’re saying that you don’t want to kiss me then?”He shakes his head while rolling his eyes, but she can see the shadow of a smile that plays across his lips. “That is not what I said.”
Relationships: Detective/Adam du Mortain, Female Detective/Adam du Mortain
Series: The Wayhaven Chronicles: Maxine Quinn [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1890658
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22





	The Tower

Adam surveys the hulking silhouette of the old fire tower that Maxine has brought him to and gives a small nod of approval at her practical choice of location for their surveillance duty. He had been passingly aware of the existence of the tower, but it had not come into his scope of interest until now. It had not concerned a case of theirs until now.

When Agent Quinn had assigned them to this task, Maxine had lit up as she willingly volunteered for surveillance duty for the troll that had come to live in the cave deep within the forest at the edge of Wayhaven. Trolls would turn to stone if out in daylight, so when the moon was full was their best opportunity to survey it’s behavior before approaching the supernatural with an offer of a treaty.

Adam would be an irresponsible Commanding Agent if he allowed her to perform surveillance duties on her own, especially considering she was still a target of the Trappers and the various other supernatural creatures that could figure out just how special she was because of the mutation in her veins.

And he would be an irresponsible partner -  _ they had yet to truly define what was going on between them _ , but that word felt enough at this time to encompass the relationship they’ve tentatively and slowly started to begin - if he let her go on her own.

And so here they both are at the bottom, preparing to climb the flights of stairs that brings them to their mission. She gives him a brief smile before she begins first, reaching a hand out behind herself to him, wiggling her fingers until he wraps his own around them.

He could be up the stairs in an instant, they both could be if she allowed him to carry her, but her jacket is closely cropped above her hips which are in turn hugged by her form-fitting black jeans, and  _ he wonders if she’d chosen to lead the way on their climb up first on purpose. _

The cheeky smile she throws back his way after the first few steps tells him that she has.

They’re halfway up the tower when Maxine suddenly stops in front of him and turns around to face him, dropping his hand with the movement. She has a smirk on her lips and he shudders at the fleeting thought that somehow, someway, she has heard his thoughts.

“Stay right where you are.”

He stands still as a marble statue, save for the bob of his Adam’s apple - _ aptly named _ \- as he takes in a deep swallow as she comes as close as she can to him without touching and a wide grin breaks out on her face.

“I’m the same height as you like this.”

And indeed, she is. At the barely five foot three she is with her tall heeled boots, she’s unaccustomed to being able to look him in the eyes without craning her neck.

_ Or a stool. _

Or to reach his lips without straining on her heels and pulling him down towards her. Not that they’ve done that often yet, they’ve stolen a handful of kisses in the days since he comforted her after her nightmares. Never in her office - well, there was the once when Douglas had been out at lunch and they’d been alone in her windowed office. She’d absently pressed a kiss to his cheek as she’d entered the room and he’d placed a hand on her arm to indicate that he’d wanted more.

And she’d obliged with a lingering kiss on his lips, promising there would be more when he was to accompany her on patrol that evening.

An invitation they’d both taken advantage of. 

And Adam liked it, the ease at which they both had come to show these moments of affection. The way it felt as if he’d always greeted her with a kiss. Or she’d always bid him goodbye with one.

Which certainly was not true. Not with how their first months since meeting had been.

“You are.” He chuckles at the moment’s distraction. “And now we’d best continue up the stairs.”

“Come on,  _ Commanding Agent _ ,” she says his title teasingly, hands slowly coming to grip the edges of his open coat. “We can have a little fun while we wait for sundown.”

He sighs, “we need to be focused on why we are here, Maxine.”

She arches a brow. “Oh so you’re saying that you don’t want to kiss me then?”

He shakes his head while rolling his eyes, but she can see the shadow of a smile that plays across his lips. “That is not what I said.”

“You sure,  _ Commanding Agent _ ?”

He leans closer, barely a breath away from her lips. “I have never said that.”

She doesn’t bring up all the times when he didn’t have to say anything in the first months of them knowing each other for her to know he wasn’t going to kiss her. His distance had been evident in the way he would pull away, as much as he had been aching not to. But she’s not going to spoil the moment now that he will freely kiss her, he knows that.

“Then kiss me already, Adam.”

He doesn’t hesitate in taking the smallest of steps forward so that they’re pressed together as he brings his lips towards hers.

She’s soft, so soft against him and he doesn’t know how he ever went without this in his life. Slowly her hands wind beneath the lapels of his coat, fingers hooking to the collar of the t-shirt he wears beneath. 

His own hands wind around her waist, pulling her just that fraction closer so that he can barely breathe without feeling her own lungs gasp each time she does so herself.

Her lips taste of her coffee - _ her third of the day, not that he is keeping track _ \- she had one this evening at the warehouse before they’d left, complaining that she’d fall asleep during their surveillance if she didn’t.

She is certainly not near falling asleep anytime soon, not with the way she was kissing him - greedy, barely taking breaths in the moments between before her lips are coming back for more of his.

It’s when her tongue swipes against his bottom lip that he pulls back, trying to focus on their mission and less on the pout that comes to her lips.

_ He needs to focus on the reason they’re here. _

“Max-”

“I know, I know… the mission.”  She hasn’t let go of the collar of his shirt just yet, not eager to part from him. “One more kiss?”

He huffs out a laugh. “I suppose one more can’t hurt to pass the time, they won’t be out until the sun has fully set and the moon has risen.”

She cocks a brow. “Passing the time? Is that all this is?” Her stern mask crumbles after barely seconds under her giggle and he knows she isn’t serious - _ even if a bolt of dread had shot down his spine at her initial concern _ . 

But before she can speak again, he answers with another lingering kiss, stealing the breath from her as she wraps her arms around his neck. His one arm wraps around her waist, pulling her as tightly as he can to his own chest and rubbing soft lines up and down her spine with his other.

He wasn’t willing to hide his intentions any longer.

“Oh I like this,” she smiles into the kiss and he’s not sure he ever wants to leave here. He could spend an eon just like this, certainly preferable to the near millennium he has already lived without her.

But then the mission comes creeping back into his mind, again.

“We should…” he clears his throat as he parts from her lips, “we should make our way to the top of the tower before the night fully sets in.”

“I suppose we are fairly visible on the stairs here.” She motions to the mesh wire that encloses them from falling, but does very little to disguise that they’re nearly halfway up the tower.

He arches his brow. “Are you saying that I’m right in my assessment, Detective Quinn?”

She grins, “just because I let you kiss me now, doesn’t mean I’m ready to fully admit when you’re right...  _ yet _ .”

Well, at least her stubbornness had not changed. It had been one of the facets of her that he had come to love, and he would not change her for the world, for the universe.

He lingers for a moment as she begins to ascend the tower once more, surveying the levels below them for any movement. When he sees none, he takes the steps two at a time to follow her to the caged in surveillance deck at the top.

When his head breaches the opening in the floor of the deck, he sees some wooden boxes around the edges of the tower, makeshift seats that used to be used for a ranger’s equipment back in the years prior when the fire tower had been operational. Maxine parks herself on one, motions for Adam to join beside her.

He cocks a brow at her.

“There’s still more time before the moon is out.”

She pats the space once more.

“Well, I do not think that I can argue with that.”

She smiles, wide and free, and he wonders how he ever could have buried down his feelings for her. 

“No, no you can’t.”

It’s a comfortable silence they settle in to when he joins her on the bench, his hand finding hers as they sit and watch the slow march of the sun towards the horizon, leaving a trail of orange and pink in its wake as it dips below.

She breaks the silence first. “You know, my friends and I used to come here all the time when we were kids.”

“Oh?”

“Wayhaven’s a small enough place that there isn’t a whole lot to do here - you have to travel to the city if there’s anything truly exciting that you want to do.”

A question lingers on the edge of his tongue, and he’s not sure he wants to know the answer, but knows it will wriggle there taunting him until he does. 

“Did you ever bring…  _ him _ … up here?” Adam doesn’t say the name, doesn’t want to. He fears he’ll break the moment by mentioning the intrepidly annoying reporter, but his curiosity nags at the back of his mind.

She laughs, a deep boisterous laugh that he’s rarely heard before. “As if, he’s so terrified at heights that he would make it past the first ten stairs.”

Adam sighs in relief, he’s not sure why he’s so concerned about the other man's presence in the place, but he is.

“Don’t worry, Adam. You’re the only one I’ve kissed here.” She smiles and leans to him a kiss on the cheek for good measure. But Adam turns his head before she can reach him and he presses his lips against hers instead. She hums in contentment at the action, hand moving to tangle in the hairs at the base of his head.

She deepens the kiss first, soft lips opening and her tongue swiping a slow line across his bottom lip.

“You’re the only one I want to kiss here.  _ Or anywhere else. _ ”

And then she’s giving his shoulders a gentle push to lean back against the solid wood - _ his back far more able to handle the unforgiving surface than hers  _ \- as she slowly swings a leg over his hips.

_ This was certainly new. _

Her lips find his again and he slides a hand up into her dark shoulder-length waves, just at the base of her skull. 

He’s highly aware of her hips pressed against his, the rapid increase in her pulse as she settles upon him.

_ This was absolutely new. _

“Is this okay?” She pulls her bottom lip between her teeth and he brings his fingertips to the skin, soft touches soothing her to let it go once more.

“ _ Yes. _ ”

They hadn’t been further intimate with each other yet, but each taking small but sure steps closer to that moment. Now was not that time, but kissing like this was a moment closer. A moment to be closer with the woman he adored. He could live off of moments like this, but he couldn’t deny that the eventual promise of more has his heart racing in his chest, out of nerves or excitement or both he can’t tell.

The way her heart is now rapidly beating as she leans down to brush her lips against his once more.

He easily gets lost in the sensations of her, the weight of her on his hips, the warmth of her, the way she completely overwhelms every single one of his heightened senses.

Adam doesn’t know how long they’ve been doing this until - 

“Hah! Told you this would happen!” It’s Farah’s voice suddenly in the darkness, and neither of them need to see her to hear the grin that’s on her face. “I want that hundred dollars, Morgan.”

The spark of Morgan’s lighter can be seen behind her in the dark and for a brief second he knows that Maxine can now see his three fellow agents at the top of the stairs, poking their heads through the gap in the floor. His own enhanced vision hadn’t needed it, and yet it may have been a mercy to not have that ability to see the looks on their faces.

He’s up from the wooden bench in a second, wondering how on earth he didn’t even sense that they were near. But then again, Maxine’s presence has always been overwhelming to him, ever since they walked into Wayhaven’s Police Station for the first time.

He chastises himself, he’s lucky that it is simply his team that has found them and not something far worse that he’d have to defend Maxine from.

_ He won’t allow this to happen again. _

“The mission’s been completed, by the way, while you two were making out.” Farah’s voice continues.

Adam clears his throat, trying not to look as sheepish as he knows he feels. “And it was successful in making contact?”

“Yeah.” Morgan mumbles around her cigarette. “Of course it was. It’s us.”

“We were able to come across them on our patrols, despite that we didn’t receive the notification that they had awoken yet from the two of you on surveillance duty.” It’s Nate this time, and Adam’s not sure if he hears disappointment or amusement in his voice. Perhaps a mix of both. 

It sends a wave of shame through Adam,  _ how could he have been so careless? _

It’s then that he notices Maxine hasn’t said anything yet.

He turns back towards her, to see her still sitting on the wooden box, the heat rising to her cheeks. She gives the group a sheepish smile and shrug, resulting in a peel of laughter from Farah. 

It eases the moment between them all, but it doesn’t ease his thoughts.

He barely speaks as they all pile into an agency supplied SUV to return to the Warehouse, thankful that Farah and Nate fill his lack of conversation with Maxine.

All of the doubts that he’d had in those first months came in a tidal wave back over his mind. Something he had not been expecting.

He doesn’t speak as he follows her inside the doors, mind whirling even as she asks him to join her for a glass of wine to unwind from the events of the evening.

“I think it may be best that we part for the remainder of the night.” His voice is stiff, emotionless and he mentally berates himself for the way she frowns for the briefest of moments, concern creasing over her brow. 

“Oh. Alright, I guess.”

He won’t allow for his carelessness to come in the way of her safety again.  _ For his feelings to put her in danger.  _ He’d contemplated for too long about this very scenario. And he’d let it happen, let himself be distracted from the mission by her presence - when her presence should have had him on extra alert for her protection.

She reaches out a hand to him, but he’s already preparing to turn away. “Adam, is everything alright?”

“I do not know.”

He doesn’t look back at her as he heads down the hallway, not even when he hears the sad sigh that escapes her lips.

**Author's Note:**

> [Check out my writing masterpage on tumblr!](https://witchqueencirce.tumblr.com/writing) Thank you for reading! ❤


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